All the Ashes
by burnmedown
Summary: After Bravo deploys to Colombia, a brutal on-base attack leaves one of their own in a coma, unable to communicate who targeted him or why. As their brother fights for his life back home, the rest of the team vows to get justice - no matter what it costs them.
1. Prologue: Day 4

**Prologue: Day Four**

When Blackburn stumbles into the command center, it's still well before dawn and his eyelids feel weighted. He's been sleeping in brief, disconnected bursts for days now, and the exhaustion is starting to settle in his bones, rendering his thoughts foggy and his fingers clumsy.

Mandy is already there, staring intently at a screen, her hands clenched tightly around a steaming mug of tar-black coffee. She was also there when Eric left, somewhere around midnight. He isn't sure she's been sleeping at all.

She looks up as he starts to pour his own mug of coffee. "Any news?" She asks.

Eric takes his time, pours the cup as full as he can without spilling, letting himself briefly hold onto the illusion that, as long as he doesn't say it, it isn't real.

The moment passes. He sits down across from Mandy, stares down at his coffee, and says, "He took a turn for the worse during the night. Looks like it won't be long now."

Mandy exhales slowly. He looks up to see that she has leaned forward and is resting her forehead on the back of her wrist.

"If we'd just found him sooner," she says dully, "he could have told us…"

It breaks Blackburn's heart a little that this is where they are now; that they've moved past obsessing over how they might have saved him, and now their regretful what-if scenarios are more focused on how they might at least have gotten justice for the man they're in the process of losing.

It's far from the first time Eric has had to deal with the violent death of one of the men under his command, but this time is different, and he doesn't know how to come to terms with it.

Combat is one thing. Losing an operator on a mission hurts like hell, but it's a risk they all know and have no choice but to accept as part of the job.

This? This wasn't that. This was so much uglier, because someone on base, someone their man _knew,_ left him to die on the floor alone, and by the time they found him - broken, stabbed, beaten into a coma - it was too late for there to be any chance of him even being able to give them a clue as to who it was.

NCIS has been called in, of course, and by all rights Eric and Mandy should be staying out of it. Should be simply letting the investigators handle the situation, since that is after all their job.

Yeah. Zero chance of that happening. They'll cooperate and do everything expected of them to assist the investigators, and they won't get in the way, but nobody has told them they can't conduct a little research of their own on their own time. Hence the staying up all night.

What's left of Bravo team is mostly a walking disaster at the moment, just bleeding pain and rage all over anything or anyone that gets near them. Eric honestly thinks everybody would have been better off if the team had simply been sent back stateside to be with their fallen man. That wasn't his call to make, though, and now he's left to pick up the pieces. To try to hold Bravo together; keep them in check; find a way to break news that is just going to cut those wounds even deeper.

Eric isn't sure he's ever felt quite this tired before.

Mandy's hand settles over his. When he looks up, she's staring at him with an almost unsettling intensity burning in her hollow, shadow-rimmed eyes.

"Whoever did this," she says, "we will find him. I swear to God."

Eric nods. She squeezes his hand. He squeezes back.

And they get to work.

* * *

Updates on this one might be a little less frequent than usual because of things, but I already have the entire plotline planned out, so I'll get it done eventually.


	2. Day 0

I know I said I might not be updating as often on this one, but I'm stressed and writing about terrible things happening to characters I love makes me slightly less stressed. For some reason. Whatever. Here, have another chapter.

* * *

By the time the mission ends, Jason Hayes is so goddamn exhausted he feels like he's moving underwater and all his neural connections have been converted to taffy.

Nobody else on his team is much better off. The helo trip back to base isn't even that long, maybe half an hour, but Brock and Clay still manage to pass out on each other - and then are both incredibly groggy and cranky when they're rudely reawakened upon landing only minutes later.

Nearly three days without sleep, and without much in the way of time to stop and eat, would be a lot more palatable if they'd at least succeeded in capturing their intended HVT - but once they finally confirmed his presence and fought their way through what felt like a million grunts to get close to the high-ranking cartel lieutenant Mandy had sent them after, the son of a bitch immediately shot himself in the head.

So much for all that potential intel Ellis had spent weeks planning for and salivating over.

Now Bravo has to come back, filthy and tired and empty-handed, to face what is sure to be one very annoyed CIA intelligence analyst. The reality is that there wasn't much of anything the SEALs could have done to make the mission end any differently, but it might take Mandy a little while to cool down and see that. She isn't always great at accepting failure. It's one of the many ways in which she and Jason are actually surprisingly alike. Most of the time Hayes is capable of understanding that tendency, being sympathetic toward it even, but right now he is tired and pissed off and hungry and does not have the patience.

To Mandy's credit, she must be able to at least somewhat read the aura of weary, on-edge annoyance hanging around the team, because she stays out of their way and gives only a slight, disappointed head shake that Jason resolutely ignores on his way to the mess hall.

He would like to somehow be able to eat, sleep and shower all at the same time, but unfortunately being required to prioritize one of those things, he's decided to go with the food first. Sonny, Ray and Trent make the same choice. Clay picks the shower option, leading Sonny to half-heartedly tease him about his need to smell pretty and wash his golden locks, to which Spenser is too tired to give more than a dismissive middle finger while walking away.

Of them all, Brock is the most exhausted, so visibly weary and out of it that he's wavering on his feet. He ends up heading back to their quarters, apparently deciding that showers and food can wait - at least for himself. Jason knows with absolute certainty that Brock will take the time to make sure his dog is fed and comfortable before he crawls into his hammock and passes out.

The remaining members of the team get their food, find a place to sit down, and eat in slow motion. Jason is pretty sure he almost misses his mouth with his fork a few times.

They're all more or less done eating and are just sitting quietly, trying to work up the energy to move, reminding themselves why it wouldn't be a great idea to fall asleep right here at the table, when the commotion starts out in the hall.

There's raised voices, a scuffle of motion, and then a very familiar bark. Seconds later, Cerberus weaves through the gathered group near the doorway and makes a beeline for Bravo's table.

The first detail that sinks into Jason's exhausted brain is the fact that the dog is moving all wrong. He's limping, favoring his left front leg.

The second and more important thing to register is the fact that Cerberus is absolutely covered in blood. His fur is matted with it. He's leaving a trail of red, sticky pawprints in his wake.

Jason makes it to his feet without conscious knowledge of having moved. Out of his peripheral vision, he sees that Sonny, Ray and Trent have done the same. Everything - all the frustration, all the exhaustion - is instantaneously swallowed up in a roar of knife-edged adrenaline.

Cerberus is here, mobile but hurt and covered in more blood than could realistically be his.

Brock isn't with him.

The instant he sees he has Bravo team's attention, the dog gives a single sharp bark, turns, and heads back the direction he came, his speed only marginally hampered by the limp. The men have to haul ass to keep up.

The Malinois leads them back to their quarters, where Brock is lying just inside the doorway of the large main room that contains all their cages.

Judging by the blood trail, Bravo Five must have made some attempt to crawl for help, but now he is horribly still, half curled up on his side.

Trent makes it to Brock first, finds the source of all the blood - a stab wound in the lower left side of his abdomen - and leans his weight on it. "Jace!" He snaps urgently.

Jason, running on decades' worth of battlefield instincts that override the shock, moves in to help, calling behind him as he does, "Ray! Medical team!"

"On it," Bravo Two responds immediately, and sprints from the room.

Brock's breathing is shallow but steady, and his airway seems clear. Pulse is a bit weak; not unexpected given the volume he's already lost. He doesn't respond to Trent's voice, to Jason's commands, to Cerberus's frantic whining while Sonny holds him back. Is the unconsciousness from the blood loss? Something worse?

Jason catches sight of the slightly pink-tinged clear fluid leaking from Brock's ear, and a fist clenches around his heart.

Fuck. _No._

He scrambles to pull out his phone and turn on its light, and in that instant, a horrible thought occurs to him.

Brock wasn't the only member of Bravo to go off on his own.

What if the whole team is being targeted?

"Sonny!" Jason yells over his shoulder. "Check on Clay!"

"Oh, _shit,"_ Sonny breathes. He turns loose of the dog - who reluctantly obeys Trent's sharp commands to _sit_ and _stay_ \- and tears off in the direction of the showers.

Jason peels back Brock's eyelids and shines the light across his eyes. He swallows. Says quietly, "Trent."

The medic looks up, pale and focused, still leaning hard on the knife wound, trying to stem the bleeding.

"Pupils are uneven and sluggish," Jason tells him. "Got CSF leaking from his ears."

Trent closes his eyes briefly, looks back down at the wound. "Check his motor response."

Jason rubs the ever-living shit out of Brock's sternum. The faint groan he gets in response is one of the best sounds he's ever heard in his life. Even better is when Bravo Five scrunches his eyebrows a little, manages to get his hand up and reach toward the source of the pain.

Trent exhales sharply. "He's localizing. That's good. That's a 5. See if you can get him to open his eyes."

The severe blood loss is complicating their attempt to accurately determine Reynolds's GCS score, but the motor response means things at least aren't as bad as they could be. Not with the head injury, anyway.

Jason is still trying to convince Brock to open his eyes, give some kind of verbal response, when the medical team arrives along with Ray and a very rumpled Blackburn. Jason gets himself out of the way so the professionals can work. Seconds later, Sonny shows back up, hauling with him a sopping-wet Clay who is still trying to wrestle a T-shirt over his head. The sight of Spenser safe and breathing loosens the knot in Jason's chest - but only by a fraction.

"No," Clay says blankly, swiping away the water running down his face from his dripping hair. He stares with wide, haunted eyes at Brock's limp form, at the flurry of motion as Trent hands off to the medical team. "No, he's- this shouldn't-"

"You're goddamn right it shouldn't." Jason's voice comes out hoarse, like he's been yelling, like he's been choking on gravel. He turns to Blackburn. "Need to have them lock down the base. Nobody in or out."

Eric gives a sharp nod, already making a phone call as he leaves the room.

"Jace." Sonny's voice trembles. "Who the hell could have done this? _Here?"_

"And why?" Ray adds, quiet and shellshocked. "Why would anybody want to hurt Brock?"

Jason watches as the medical team gets Reynolds strapped securely onto a backboard and rushes him out of the room. Trent goes with them; at his request, one of the other medics stays behind to check Cerberus's injuries.

Hayes breathes in. He breathes out. And then he says, "I don't know. But we're sure as hell gonna find out."

* * *

And now y'all know which of them I've hurt. Not to worry; the rest of the team will be getting into plenty more trouble too.


	3. Day 2 to Day 4

It's morning, and Naima is driving home from working an overnight shift at the hospital when Ray calls her.

With long, hard-won practice, she tamps down the tiredness burning through her bones and makes her voice bright when she answers. She is always so glad to hear from him, to know that in this moment he is safe and okay, that it doesn't even take that much pretending.

The cheer starts to fade as soon as she hears the sound of her husband's voice. It disappears entirely when he tells her what he's calling about.

Brock has been severely injured. He's being sent home for further treatment. Cerberus is also hurt and is being flown stateside along with his handler so he can be evaluated for a potential torn ligament in his shoulder, which might require the services of a veterinary surgeon.

Naima feels the familiar gut-wrenching churn of emotion: grief and anger that one of Ray's brothers has been badly wounded; relief that it wasn't Ray; guilt that she's even capable of feeling relieved when one of the men she cares the most about in the world is injured and suffering.

After laying out the situation for her, Ray hesitates, and Naima gets the distinct feeling that there's something else he isn't telling her. When he doesn't speak, she takes the initiative to ask, "Is everybody else okay?"

Ray clears his throat. "Uh, yeah. We're fine. That's… that's the thing, baby. It didn't happen in the field."

She blinks, automatically pulling to a stop as the light ahead turns red. "What?"

"Happened on base." Ray's voice is tight with fury. "Somebody _here_ hurt him. And because he couldn't talk to us, we haven't been able to figure out who did it. Or why."

God.

The light goes green, and Naima makes her final turn before reaching home. Keeping her voice soft and even, she asks, "Where's your head at right now?"

She hears an exhale on the other end. Ray takes his time before finally admitting, "Nowhere good." Another pause, then he adds, "Better than where Jason's is, though."

Not exactly surprising. She can only imagine how hard this is hitting Bravo One, who internalizes to the marrow of his soul his responsibility for making sure the men under his command are protected and cared for. Having one of them get so severely harmed in a place where he should have been safe? That has got to be eating Jason alive.

Naima says gently, "Ray, please be careful. Don't let this snowball."

Times like these, when the entire team is angry and hurting and their heads aren't in the game, frighten her. So much. More than she can bring herself to let Ray know.

"I'll try," he tells her. "I promise." He adds a request of his own: "Take care of him, okay? Least till one of his sisters can get there."

Brock's parents are alive but in fragile health, not up for the long trip. His sisters both have careers and young children, so they'll have plenty of arrangements to make before they can travel, but Naima knows they will come as soon as they possibly can.

Now it's her turn to vow, "I will. I promise." She adds, "Cerb, too. Whatever he needs."

They both know that 'whatever he needs' encompasses a lot, even beyond just the vet visits and home medical care that will be required. The Malinois is a requisite working dog, requiring continual interaction, stimulation, reinforcement of his training. Fortunately, it won't be the first time Naima has cared for the sweet, loyal, intense, high-energy tornado of a dog. Cerberus already knows and trusts her and the kids - and of course Jameelah and RJ absolutely adore him.

After she's done talking to her husband, Naima immediately starts making other calls. First, she arranges childcare for her kids. There's a teenage boy in her neighborhood who's responsible and really good with dogs, and she's had him hang out with Cerb a few times before, so her next call is to his parents just in case she ends up needing a dogsitter while she's at the hospital with Brock.

All of this would be a lot simpler if Brock and his girlfriend hadn't broken up a couple months before this deployment, but it doesn't matter. He's family, and so is Cerberus, and Naima will do whatever is necessary to take care of them.

When Brock arrives, she doesn't get to see him right away. She still has some arrangements to make, and he gets taken pretty much straight into surgery anyway. She does get to see Cerberus briefly before he is transported to a state-of-the-art animal hospital to be evaluated by a specialist. The dog wags his tail just a little, looks up at her with heartbroken eyes, and refuses to be consoled.

When Naima finally does get to visit Brock, she ruthlessly pushes down the surge of emotion at seeing a friend so still and broken, and tries instead to make herself look at the situation through a nurse's eyes.

Brock was stabbed and nearly bled out, but the medical team on base got to him quickly enough to save him. Other than the bleeding, the knife caused surprisingly little internal damage, and he would likely be slated for a full recovery if that wound were his biggest problem.

It isn't.

The major issue here is the head trauma that resulted from being struck with a heavy object. Reynolds has what is currently being classified as a moderate brain injury. They've done a ventriculostomy, both to monitor his intracranial pressure and so that they can drain off fluid if necessary. He has a skull fracture that extended into the sinuses, hence the CSF leak, but it isn't depressed and should hopefully heal on its own.

Naima stares at the ICP readout for a while, just to remind herself that he's holding his own for now.

Bravo Five is deeply sedated and probably not aware of much of anything around him. Naima holds his hand and talks to him anyway. She tells him he's safe, that his team is safe, that his dog is okay and being well cared for, that his sisters are on their way.

She doesn't tell him he's going to be all right. Nurses learn early on not to make promises they can't keep.

For about 36 hours, there's not much change. Brock's intracranial pressure holds steady, then starts to gradually decrease, and he doesn't suffer any hemorrhaging to complicate the cerebral contusion. Even though Naima knows that brain injuries can be tricky and unpredictable, despite herself she does start to relax just a bit, to think that maybe things will be okay.

As it turns out, the second of Brock's two sisters ends up arriving less than an hour before things go bad. The pessimistic part of Naima can't help but wonder if Brock was just hanging on long enough for his family to get there. It wouldn't be the first time she's seen it happen.

If the problem were merely a growing hematoma, increasing ICP, they could address it surgically - but it isn't that simple. Even though the head injury itself seems to be doing as well as could be expected, it's only one facet of the onslaught of trauma that Brock's body has been faced with, leaving him in an incredibly fragile state. His medical team has been working desperately to keep him stable, and they've done an admirable job considering that the man was not long out of hypovolemic shock when they first got their hands on him, but gradually his condition starts to worsen during the night.

His kidney function decreases. His blood pressure drops and they struggle to get it back up. His temperature rises. His breathing, which thus far had remained impressively strong and steady for a TBI patient, starts to falter and his sats drop. They put him on oxygen, and still he quietly fades.

When Blackburn calls for an update, Naima blinks back the grief and forces herself to speak as a medical professional rather than as a friend. She tells the commander the truth: that Brock has fought incredibly hard, but it's not a battle he's currently winning. His doctors aren't optimistic.

Eric handles the news with his characteristic composed calm. She only hears the underlying grief and weariness because she knows him so very well.

He thanks her for being there and for telling him. Naima has to press her hand over her mouth for a moment to keep her composure, but her voice holds steady when she gathers herself and says, "Ray and the guys, tell them Brock's sisters and I are here with him, okay? Tell them he's not alone."

Voice soft, Blackburn promises he will, and then he thanks her again before hanging up.

Naima looks back at the bed, where Brock is surrounded by sisters, one on each side. They're pale but composed. With the women's facial features and dark, curly hair, it is heart-wrenchingly obvious that the three of them are siblings.

Slipping her phone into her pocket, Naima pulls up a chair. Brock isn't allowed oral fluids, and she would imagine he's pretty parched by now, so she gently moistens the inside of his mouth with a damp sponge swab.

It's a miserable business, dying.

Naima lays a gentle hand on her friend's forehead. "We're here," she tells him. "We are right here, and you are safe."

It isn't right, that a man who has fought and survived so many battles should die this way: slowly, having likely been murdered by someone he should have been able to trust.

With nothing else left to do, Naima settles in to wait and try to hang onto any small, fragile sliver of hope she can find.


	4. Day 0 to Day 6

Clay scrubs off the dirt, washes his hair, and then damn near falls asleep under the spray of cool water. It feels nice to no longer be sweaty, sticky and covered in grime.

He's drifting, floating in a hazy fog of exhaustion, when Sonny bursts into the shower room yelling Clay's name in a tone that sounds very much like panic.

Clay shuts off the water just as Sonny rounds the corner, looking pale and stricken. Catching sight of his confused teammate, the Texan stops and says, "Oh thank God."

The joke that had first jumped to mind - _What, did you think I'd drowned?_ \- dies on Clay's lips as soon as he gets a good look at Sonny's expression. He means to ask what's going on, but the word that comes out instead is, "Who?"

Sonny throws a towel at him. "It's Brock. Something happened. Get dressed."

Clay hurriedly gets his pants on, but Sonny grabs him by the elbow and hauls him off before he manages to pull on a T-shirt. Half-blinded by the fabric he's trying to yank down over his head, Clay lets his friend steer him through the hallways. His mind spins. What the hell could have happened to Brock _here?_ Some sort of accident?

As soon as they reach their quarters and Clay catches sight of his teammate being swarmed by the medical team, he realizes this is much, much worse than any simple accident. An instant later, it clicks why Sonny was so urgent about finding him.

Someone hurt Brock and left him to die. The team must have worried that the same could have happened to Clay.

Cerberus, too, is injured. Clay knows the dog will have fought as hard as he could to protect his handler. Hopefully Cerb mauled the shit out of whoever did this.

While Brock is being worked on in the infirmary, Blackburn goes to have the base locked down to try to make sure that whoever attacked Bravo Five won't be able to simply slip out and disappear.

Reynolds is flown back to the States pretty much as soon as he is stable enough for the trip. His team gets to see him for only a few brief seconds beforehand, just long enough to remind him that he's loved, encourage him to keep fighting, promise him that they will get justice.

After the flight has left with both Brock and Cerberus aboard, Clay starts to get his first real sense of what things must have been like for his team after the bombing in Manila.

At the time, he was pretty wrapped up in his own misery: the unremitting pain in his legs; the (partially self-imposed) isolation; the gut-deep fear that his career as an operator was over. In hindsight, he probably never gave nearly enough thought to how the situation was affecting the other members of Bravo. How much it might hurt them to have to spend so much time not hearing from him, not knowing if he was okay.

He kind of feels like he's paying for that now, because this is fucking _awful._

Minutes stretch into hours, and there's no resolution - on any front. No news about Brock, and just as frustratingly, zero progress on the search for his attacker.

No one on base appears to be sporting any fresh bite marks or inexplicable bruises or busted lips. None of the security cameras seem to have captured anything relevant. There aren't any witnesses who reported seeing or hearing something suspicious.

Unfortunately, there were a number of people who left base between the estimated time of the attack and when Blackburn finally managed to get it fully locked down. Most were military, along with a few civilian contractors. Eric is trying to have them all tracked down, but it's complicated; there are a lot of different destinations to sort through, and some of them involve sensitive missions.

Having been exhausted and sleep-deprived even before the start of this nightmare, they force themselves to get some rest, waking to news from home: Brock made it to the hospital alive. His condition is critical but he's stable for the moment. Naima is with him, which is comforting to know; the world contains few better allies than Ray Perry's wife.

For the better part of three days, it's status quo. NCIS arrives, interviews everybody, doesn't seem to be getting much of anywhere. The remaining members of Bravo slowly start to lose their minds. It would be bad enough just being uselessly stuck here while Brock is so far away and still might die; living on a base that quite possibly contains the person or people who harmed their brother just makes things exponentially worse, turning them all into paranoid, temperamental powder kegs.

Some of them more than others. Sonny gets temporarily confined to quarters after starting not his first, not his second, but his _third_ yelling match that damn near escalated into a fistfight.

Truth be told, the rest of them aren't much better off. They need something to _do._ They're weapons without a target to be aimed at, and the explosion is inevitable, and the part of Clay that's still at least vaguely self-aware is concerned that there will be collateral damage when it comes.

As it turns out, the devastating news arrives before that explosion has a chance to happen, and it leaves them all so stunned and shellshocked that they can't think about much of anything else for a while.

Brock's condition is no longer stable. The doctors have warned Brock's sisters and Naima that they should prepare for the worst. Blackburn emphasizes that this doesn't necessarily mean there's no hope at all, but Clay can read between the lines: there is at best very little. Odds are that they will never see Brock Reynolds alive again.

Suddenly, incongruously, Clay remembers reading somewhere that animals need to be able to see and sniff the body in order to truly understand that a loved one has died. What if Cerberus doesn't get to do that? Will the dog spend the rest of his life lonely and hoping, still looking for Brock around every corner, listening for him in every voice?

For some reason it's that thought more than anything else that breaks Clay a little. In the echoing, awful silence following Blackburn's words, he clenches his jaw and pushes his chair back and goes to hide in a shower stall where there's nobody to give a shit if he cries.

The waiting damn near undoes them all; they're like rats in a trap, just about ready to start trying to gnaw off their own limbs. Blackburn has been extra cautious due to the still unknown motivation behind the attack and the continuing possibility that the rest of the team could be targeted, but he finally gives in and sends them outside as a group to run hills so they can at least burn off some of the nervous energy, the all-encompassing anger.

Shortly after they come back inside feeling sweaty and achy and marginally better, Naima calls back to say Brock is still breathing.

Eight hours after that, she calls again, and there's something like hope in her voice when she relates that his blood pressure is up, his breathing is better, his kidneys are maybe starting to work again. She says the doctors are still cautious, but they're beginning to talk about the future now, about procedures they formerly believed Brock probably wouldn't survive long enough to have.

The next day, the news is better still. Brock is still sedated - with the degree of head injury he suffered, he probably will be for a while - but his condition has been moved back to stable. Whatever it was that caused him to spiral, he fought through it, and his vitals are holding strong and steady now.

They all know this is no guarantee of anything. Brock's health is still fragile. Things could still go downhill very quickly. Even if he does pull through, he's got a brain injury that could cause him to be a very different person once he finally wakes up. Actually recovering enough to ever operate again? That might be a long shot.

Despite all of that, they're almost giddy with relief, because Brock is _alive,_ and they didn't expect that. As long as he's alive, there's still hope that they'll get him back - and even if the 'him' they get back isn't quite the same as the one they had before, they'll still love him, and he'll still have them as his brothers.

The following morning brings another round of welcome news. It's early, and they're all a little bleary-eyed and several of them are only vaguely wearing any clothing, when Mandy marches into their quarters with a crackling, almost manic energy that speaks of a little too much caffeine-fueled sleep avoidance.

"I still don't know _who_ hurt Brock," she immediately clarifies, "but I think I might know _why._ And, hopefully, how to find out who." She gives them a fierce, satisfied sort of smile that every member of Bravo is very familiar with. "Meet us at ops in 10. Looks like you've got a mission."

* * *

PSA: An upcoming chapter will contain Clay (and Trent) whump. I know some of y'all have been waiting for it. ;)


	5. Day 5 to Day 6

Someone hurt one of Mandy's guys.

Someone attacked one of Mandy's guys, deliberately and viciously, and while he was exhausted and in a location where he should have been able to safely let his guard down.

Whoever that person is, Mandy is going to find him and burn him, and salt the earth after.

She has never been especially good at emotional intimacy. There are a number of possible reasons for that: childhood background, personality, occupation. Whatever the cause, she just isn't much for sentiment or touchy-feely moments. Sometimes she does try, but is aware that she still usually comes off as prickly, and that plenty of people dislike her for it.

So yeah, she doesn't much do closeness, but loyalty? When it comes to the tiny handful of people who have earned it from her, Mandy Ellis is loyal to her bones.

Brock Reynolds happens to be one of those people.

It isn't even just because he's a member of Bravo, though that certainly plays a role. When he was a rookie, Brock warmed up to Mandy almost immediately. She still isn't quite sure why; part of it was probably just because his dog liked her. Whatever the reason, he built rapport with her faster than nearly anyone else she's ever worked with, and has never treated her with anything less than his own quiet, thoughtful brand of respect.

Long story short, Brock is one of hers. That means she's getting this done even if it means she never sleeps again.

NCIS arrived, conducted interviews, checked over the crime scene, didn't find much. Mandy answered their questions, and stayed out of their way, and has been quietly carrying out her own investigation without drawing notice.

Thus far, she's found nothing. Nothing.

Five days. _Nothing._

It's... night, sometime. She hasn't bothered to glance at a clock in a while; hasn't looked away from her screen except to get up and put on yet another pot of coffee. She has had a headache for several days and has spent pretty much that entire time vibrating at the frequency of caffeine, and even that is starting to lose its efficacy. Her fingers keep going numb and there are odd, refracted sparkles at the corners of her vision.

Eric, who himself has been burning the midnight oil, gently suggested before he went to bed that she should probably get some sleep. Mandy nodded and then did no such thing.

She's glad there isn't any Adderall available, because if there were, she might be tempted to take it.

Mandy has learned from years of experience that sometimes continuing to beat your head against the same brick wall is the worst possible strategy for actually solving a problem. Eventually, your vision blurs and your focus goes and you lose perspective and stop seeing even the things that are right in front of you. At times like these, sometimes the best thing to do is just to take a step back and do something else for a while.

For some reason, she's been having a hard time convincing herself to do that in this particular scenario - but if she watches through the security footage one more time, her eyes might literally melt out of her skull.

She finally glances at the clock, discovers that it's just before 0100, sighs, and forces herself to actually heed Eric's suggestion and go lie down for a while. She does set an alarm for 0400, though, and three hours later she's shuffling right back in with her eyelashes still half matted together.

Instead of poring over personnel files or rewatching security footage for the millionth time, she decides to take a break and focus on something else, such as her actual job. While chugging cold, burnt, disgusting coffee left over from the pot she put on right before going to sleep, Mandy reads through emails from assets. Listens to some chatter.

The first time she hears it, she thinks she might be in the middle of a hallucination induced by too little sleep and too much caffeine. She has to rewind and listen all the way through again to convince herself that she actually heard what she thought she heard.

Mandy slams down her headphones and goes to drag Eric out of bed.

A few minutes later he's standing next to her, yawning and looking more than a little rumpled and out of sorts. She offers him a cup of revolting coffee sludge. He looks at her like she's gone insane. Which, hell, maybe she has.

The sleepiness disappears pretty damn fast when she plays him the recording.

He stares at the screen, eyebrows drawn together, and doesn't say a thing. She rewinds it and plays it again.

"Who is that?" Eric finally asks.

"José Moreno. High-ranking lieutenant in the Cuartas cartel." When Blackburn gives her a blank look indicating he doesn't recognize the name, she adds, "They're small. Very little real power right now. Wouldn't even be on our radar if some local law enforcement contacts hadn't given us the heads-up that they'd been taken over by a new capo with very big plans."

She watches the wheels turn as he evaluates and discards possibilities, finally asking, "No other way this information could have made it out?"

Mandy thinks through that, sighs. "Nothing's ever for sure, but we've locked it down tight, Eric. I don't see any likely way a lieutenant in this specific cartel could know exactly what happened on this base five... six days ago, _and_ who it happened to, unless…"

"Unless whoever did it told him about it," Blackburn adds grimly. He sits down, rubbing a slightly shaky hand over his beard. "You think somebody in the Navy is working with him."

Mandy softens her voice, knowing how hard this must hit him. "Wouldn't be the first time. A few years ago, a SEAL got busted trying to transport cocaine from Colombia into the U.S."

Eric shakes his head. "Still, though, why Brock? If you were planning to smuggle out drugs, you'd want to _avoid_ attention. Why the hell attack a Tier One operator?"

It hits them both at the same time.

"Oh, my God," Mandy breathes.

Cerberus is an explosive detection canine now, among many other things, but he was originally imprinted on narcotics.

Cerberus was with Brock on his way back to Bravo's quarters.

"_Fuck,"_ Blackburn declares, quietly and with feeling.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Mandy asks him.

He looks up, eyes bright and fierce. "I'm thinking we grab José Moreno and ask him real polite who it was that told him all about what happened to Brock."

She smiles. "So that's a yes."

They need to get the mission put together as fast as possible, given what's at stake, and given that Mandy actually knows where Moreno is at the moment but could lose him if he moves. As it turns out, the two of them together are able to swing authorization surprisingly quickly, after which they immediately rouse the support team and get them scrambling on logistics.

The next step is to let Bravo know that they've got a mission. Maybe, hopefully, a mission that will let them find justice for their brother.

Eric gives Mandy the honor of conveying that news herself, which she knows is a gesture of respect toward the fact that she was the one who came up with the relevant intel. She gives him a nod of acknowledgement before heading to Bravo's quarters.

Getting to tell them about the mission, that's the good part. Mandy can see the newfound focus; can pinpoint the moment that all that energy that's been burning them up from the inside immediately starts to get channeled in a direction that might actually be constructive.

Having to tell them about the ugly truth that likely lies behind the mission? That part is less fun.

After Mandy lays it out in the briefing, Sonny asks quietly, "You think it was a SEAL?"

She hesitates. Says carefully, "I think it was probably someone who believed he had the ability to move drugs from here to the States. Beyond that, there's really no way of knowing. Not until-"

"Until we bring this son of a bitch in and ask him," Jason finishes, voice and gaze intense. He slaps the table. "Let's gear up."

The hope and purpose lend Mandy focus, softening the effects of the exhaustion. She thrums with determination and certainty. They know exactly where Moreno is. Their plan for snatching him is good, as solid as it can be on such short notice. This will work. Bravo will bring him back, and then she will find out exactly who attacked Brock Reynolds.

That sense of confidence lasts right up until the moment things go terribly, catastrophically wrong.


	6. Day 6

The last time one of Ray Perry's teammates got severely injured in an incident that left the team looking for payback, Ray himself also happened to have been already spiraling pretty hard beforehand.

Questioning his faith. Sabotaging his marriage. Wrestling with his purpose, his personality, his moral code, his place on the team.

Now, well, he's pretty well figured that shit out. Is back to being the man he's supposed to be.

It helps... but only a little. Having started out in a better headspace doesn't prevent him from being furious; from feeling frustrated and confined and useless; from needing something to _do._ Something more active and meaningful than just trying to keep his teammates from losing it.

Jason is blaming himself, even if he won't admit to it, because he's Jason. Sonny is furious and on edge and looking for someone to take it out on, because he's Sonny. Trent is usually pretty level-headed by nature, but Brock is his best friend, so he's hurting bad. Clay... well, Clay is mostly just a lot quieter than usual, which is generally worrying with him. By now, they've all spent enough time around Spenser to know that nothing good comes of him getting stuck inside his own head.

It's good for them all to hear Naima's updates, which seem to be growing more optimistic each time she calls. Brock is stable and growing stronger. His intracranial pressure is almost back to normal; he hasn't developed any hematomas or hemorrhages or other issues that might require more surgery. The medical team is starting to confidently talk about the future now, about how long it might be before they can start to wean him off the sedation.

Knowing that their brother is hanging on and improving does make them feel a little better, but it still doesn't give them an effective outlet for the anger, the energy, the overpowering need to act.

That's where Mandy comes in.

Being told that they have a mission, and that it might offer them a way to find justice for Brock, feels a bit like being released from purgatory. Like the walls have stopped closing in and they can finally breathe now. Ray looks around the table and sees that feeling reflected in the eyes of each of his brothers.

There's an objective now. And they will not fail.

The cartel lieutenant they're supposed to be bringing in is named José Moreno. Thanks to surveillance and intel, Mandy knows exactly where he is right now: visiting his favorite mistress in the cute little house he bought her in a relatively quiet, peaceful midsize town.

Which is about to become significantly less peaceful - though hopefully only for a few minutes before they get their asses out of there with their HVT in tow.

The infil plan is relatively simple. They'll take a helo to within a few klicks of town, switch over to a truck from there, grab the target, and drive with him back to exfil. It's the sort of mission design they could all pretty much execute in their sleep at this point.

Everything goes smoothly on the way in. Mandy somehow managed to swing a drone, even on such short notice, and she reports that ISR looks good. The town seems quiet and their target doesn't appear to have moved. She warns that he's a paranoid son of a bitch and does have some security with him, maybe two or three armed guys, but that shouldn't pose much of a problem.

The house is set out alone at the edge of town, shielded by a charming privacy curtain of lush trees and untrimmed flowering shrubs, which should hopefully make it easier to slip in without drawing attention. Bravo will park the truck in a little gravel cut-out near a stream on the other side of the trees, then trek through the foliage to reach the grounds.

It's mid-afternoon. The cover of darkness might have been nice, but Mandy believed Moreno would likely move again before nightfall, and she was worried that she might lose him if he did. Nobody involved was willing to risk letting this chance slip away, so daylight mission it is.

The muggy heat isn't exactly pleasant. They deal with it. Hopefully their target is taking a nice little afternoon siesta and won't have a clue they're coming until there are rifles on him.

There are a couple guys posted outside. Bravo takes them out quickly and quietly before making entry.

Just after they pick the lock and enter the silent, empty front room, Blackburn says, "_Bravo One, be advised, got some movement in town. Couple vehicles headed toward your pos. Might be nothing, but keep your heads on a swivel."_

"Copy that," Jason whispers. He sends Clay and Trent out to pull security on the side of the house facing the road. The rest of them head further in, toward the interior bedroom where their target should be with his mistress.

Sure enough, there's a bedroom, and a bed, and a scantily clothed man and woman in the bed. It isn't until they get a good look at the man's face that they realize there's a big goddamn problem.

Ray takes out his phone and pulls up the picture Mandy provided of their HVT. He holds the phone at arm's length, looks at the photo, the man, back to the photo again.

Shit.

The rest of the house has already been cleared. There's nobody else here.

"HAVOC," Ray says, "it's a decoy. Repeat, we do not have Moreno."

Almost overlapping his words, Mandy comes onto the radio, sounding clipped and urgent. "_There are two vehicles pulling away from your position."_

What the hell?

Why didn't Clay and Trent let them know?

"Bravo Four, report," Jason snaps.

Nothing.

"Bravo Six, come in!"

The silence that answers Jason's words wraps around Ray's heart like barbed wire. He meets Jason's gaze, and then all three of them head toward the exterior of the house, already half knowing what they're going to find.

Outside, there are two helmets lying abandoned; one on the porch, the other tipped on its side in the dirt nearby. Other than that, there's no sign whatsoever of their missing teammates.

Sonny drops to his heels to pick up Clay's helmet. When he looks up, he's pale and shaken. "Jace," he says, "we've got to..."

"Fall back to the truck," Jason orders shortly, and they collect the helmets and get moving, leaving the house behind. "They can't have gotten far," Hayes adds. "HAVOC, looks like Bravo Four and Bravo Six have been taken. What's the location on those vehicles?"

When Blackburn answers, he sounds tense and oddly hesitant. "_About halfway through town, but there's a problem. Town isn't so quiet anymore. Got multiple vehicles and at least a couple dozen tangos headed your way. You need to get out of there. Now."_

Dodging underbrush, Ray glances over to see that Jason has clenched his jaw so tight that the side of his face is twitching. He doesn't respond right away.

"_Bravo One, do you copy?"_ Blackburn presses, an edge of worry in his voice. "_You are severely outnumbered. Cannot pursue without taking casualties. Get to exfil immediately."_

"Good copy, HAVOC," Jason replies through gritted teeth. "Proceeding to exfil now."

"_We've got ISR on them,"_ Mandy says, softening her voice into what Ray suspects is her very best reassuring tone. "_We'll track the vehicles to destination. Start working up a rescue strategy as quickly as we can."_

"See that you do," Jason responds, in not nearly so polite a tone.

That's about the last thing he says to her until they're back on base, at which point he marches up to her and says, "What the fuck, Mandy?"

She blinks bleary, bloodshot eyes at him. Opens her mouth. Closes it. Rubs a hand over her face.

"They knew," Jason tells her. "They _knew_ we were coming and I - I lost two more of my guys." Beneath the boiling anger, he sounds almost bewildered. Ray understands the feeling. How could it have gone this bad, this fast?

"We'll get them back," Mandy says through her fingers.

"Yeah? Will we? Or will they know we're coming this time too?" Jason paces, away and back, like a caged bear. "There's something wrong here. Whoever did this, whoever this asshole's inside man is, they knew about our mission. Everything. Details. Timing."

They all look at each other, Blackburn and Mandy and the three remaining members of Bravo.

"One of your local law enforcement contacts?" Ray suggests to Mandy.

She immediately shakes her head. "This wasn't a joint op. None of them actually knew the details of the mission. They wouldn't have even been capable of leaking that kind of information."

Then a member of the support staff, maybe?

Normally Ray would immediately reject that thought; would feel guilty for even having it in the first place. Every member of the regular Bravo support team is more than proven by this point. He would trust those men and women with his life. Does, regularly.

But on this particular deployment, Bravo was assigned a couple of temporary support staff, guys who had been in-country for a while and were extremely familiar with local operations. They've mostly seemed quiet, competent and professional, and while Ray has exchanged a few pleasantries, he doesn't know them well at all.

He looks around the room. Can almost see everybody else's thoughts settling in the same spot his just did.

"What's the smallest team we can run a rescue op with?" He asks quietly.

Mandy blows out a breath. "Us. Carter, Hernández, Meyers. It would pretty much be a skeleton crew, but I think we could manage."

With Davis gone - and Ray's heart still twists a little every time he remembers that, even though he's happy for her - the three people Mandy mentioned are the longest tenured members of support, the most above suspicion. Surely that degree of caution will be good enough. It will have to be good enough, because this op can't go wrong. Not this one. There's too damn much at stake.

Blackburn faces the three men who are currently all that is left to represent Bravo Team. Voice low and intense, he says, "Listen to me. We _will_ figure out who is behind this, and they will face justice. But first, we're gonna go after our guys, and we're gonna bring them home."

Jason, eyes blazing, gives a sharp nod. "Damn right."

Ray echoes agreement. He tries to keep his expression confident and certain and purposeful. And he thinks, _Just please, please, God in heaven please don't let us be too late._


	7. Day 6 to Day 8

Content warning: This chapter contains non-consensual drug use, self-injuring behaviors due to the influence of said drugs, speculative thoughts about attempted suicide (no such thing actually occurs), and mentions of disturbing violence.

Also: This chapter got ridiculously out of control and as a result is extremely long. Sorry not sorry.

* * *

Sonny Quinn is painfully well aware of what cartels tend to do to people who cross them.

He's heard the stories. He's seen the pictures and videos. Right now, he's very much wishing he never had, because those things are fueling the images that appear against the canvas of his eyelids every single time he blinks.

In his mind, now it's Spenser being flayed. Trent getting his head sawed off.

He knows he can't let himself think like that - that he has to believe they'll be able to bring their brothers home alive - but it is really damn hard to keep his brain from wandering back down the same path every time his focus slips even a little.

Brock was bad enough, the way they found him hurt so bad in a context where he should have been safe. The way they came so close to losing him, and spent a whole day thinking they would.

This? This is maybe even worse, because at least they knew that Brock was receiving care and was surrounded by people who loved him, and that that wouldn't change even if worse came to worst.

Clay and Trent, they're not safe. They're about as far from safe as it's possible to get.

Sonny is a little pissed at Mandy at the moment, even though he knows none of this is strictly her fault, but he does have to give her credit for keeping her promise on the ISR. She manages to track both vehicles to their destination. Even grabs a slightly blurry image of a couple of bound captives being dragged out of one of them. Sonny's concern that they're being duped again disappears as soon as he gets a good look at the photo, because he'd know that head of unruly blond hair anywhere.

So, they know where their guys are. Now the only problem is just getting them out. Preferably in one piece.

Unfortunately, that's a real damn big problem.

Much as Jason wanted to go _right fucking now,_ and as hard as he tried to argue that they could manage a stealth op and get in and out quick and quiet, Blackburn put his foot down. He's not sending in a team of just three men to try to rescue valuable hostages from a cartel. Not even a small cartel.

"We don't do suicide missions, Jason," he says steadily, and that is that. It means they're stuck waiting for Alpha and Charlie to arrive.

On the bright side, having the extra rifles - and support personnel, as Mandy points out - will certainly boost their chances of the mission actually succeeding. On the much less bright side, it means they've got no choice but to wait an extra seven hours to go get their boys, and doing so is absolutely excruciating.

They sit. Most everything is quiet, except for the rhythmic thud of Jason's bouncing knee knocking against the underside of the table. Sonny looks at Jason and Ray, at the empty seats surrounding them, and he can't help but think about Echo team.

Of course this isn't the same, not at all. This isn't the earthshaking, incomprehensible catastrophe of six Tier One operators dead in a single bright flash. Even so, it feels pretty damn catastrophic, because less than a week ago they were a team of six, and now there are three of them left standing.

After a while, Mandy marches into the room with that same triumphant look on her face that she had before sending them on their last disastrous mission. Seeing it now just annoys Sonny, given how last time turned out, but he manages to keep his mouth shut.

Ellis pulls a new photo up on the screen. "Look who's at the same warehouse where they're keeping Trent and Clay."

They all glance up, squint a little, come to the same conclusion. It's José Moreno.

There are a couple possibilities here. One, Moreno is an overconfident idiot who thinks he's invincible and has showed up to gloat over his new prizes. Two, Moreno is once again a step ahead of them, and he's using his presence to sweeten the pot and make absolutely sure someone will show up.

Given how things have been going lately, Sonny is genuinely concerned that it might be option two. But he knows it doesn't really even matter. Their guys need them, so they're going in either way.

Hopefully, even if Moreno _does_ know they're coming, the asshole won't be expecting the full force of Alpha and Charlie teams in addition to what's left of Bravo. The Cuartas cartel is about to be in for a world of hurt.

When the other teams finally arrive, Beau Fuller claps Ray on the shoulder, nods at Sonny and Jason. Times like these, any personal issues or tensions pretty much disappear, or at least get shoved far into the background. All that matters is the fact that their brothers are in danger and they're going to bring them home.

Once it's finally go time, Sonny relishes the adrenaline, the laser focus that washes his mind clear of everything except the mission and the objectives and the need to survive.

Bravo and Charlie go after the hostages, while Alpha takes Moreno. There's opposition, plenty of it, but nothing two and a half Tier One teams can't handle.

They find Bravo Four and Bravo Six in an dark interior room without windows. Sonny blows the lock, the door swings open, and the light from the main part of the warehouse floods over Trent, who is sitting against the opposite wall, his hands and feet manacled and chained to the concrete floor.

Sonny's heart leaps with hope that almost immediately slides into fury, because Bravo Four looks _awful,_ slumped against the wall, head resting on his own shoulder. He's filthy and covered in contusions; there's blood all down the front of his shirt from a clearly broken nose. While Trent is clearly still alive, his breathing don't look right. There are too-long pauses followed by sudden gasps that look painful even from the doorway.

Charlie team's medic gets one look at Trent and immediately crosses the room to kneel beside him, reach out to check his pulse. Seeing that Trent is receiving care, Sonny scans the room, his heart rate escalating in the few seconds it takes him to find Clay near-concealed in the shadows. Just as his gaze lands on Spenser, the kid moves, drawing a knee up toward his chest. Relief floods through Sonny at the sight.

"Clay? Hey, buddy. You good?" He starts to move to his teammate's side, only to pull up at a sharp command from a voice he didn't expect.

"_Wait!"_ Trent barks, then coughs, gasps again. "Careful. Don't... touch him."

Don't touch him? Why the hell not?

A member of Charlie team has pulled out bolt cutters, is busy freeing Trent so they can move him. Frustrated by the shadows that make it impossible to get a good look at Clay, Sonny flicks on a light and sucks in a breath.

Like Trent, Spenser is manacled hand and foot. He's stiff as a plank, plastered back against the wall, his entire body wracked with constant shivers. Sonny finally registers that that's where the faint rattling noise has been coming from: Clay's chains clanking as he shakes.

Clay is staring straight ahead. He doesn't react, not even when Sonny sweeps the light across his face, revealing pupils blown so wide they've swallowed the blue of the kid's eyes. His lips move like he's chanting, or maybe begging, but Sonny can't hear his voice at all.

Sonny sweeps the light lower, gets his first glance at Clay's arms, and nearly drops the light.

Every inch of exposed skin is scored with gashes, shallow but vicious, like he's been attacked by some kind of rabid animal with blunt claws and filed-down teeth. There are thin strips of skin just hanging off in a few places. He's bleeding, sluggishly but from a hundred different places, and his shirt is already soaked.

"_Jesus Christ,"_ Sonny hisses. For an instant, the world goes white at the edges, and he finds himself moving forward despite Trent's warning.

And Clay loses it.

He tries to throw himself upright, slamming his weight against the short-chained manacles with such horrifying force that Sonny is afraid he's going to break his arms, his ankles. He doesn't even seem to feel the pain. Any of it.

"No," Clay says. "No, no, NO, _NO,"_ the word rising in volume until he's practically screaming it.

As he yells, he cringes back and raises blood-caked hands and starts tearing at his arms with his own fingernails.

That's when Sonny realizes where the gashes came from, and he damn near throws up on the spot. It takes all his self-control to refocus on the crisis, on trying to control what he can right now.

He eases back, hands out, repeating a quiet, hopefully soothing mantra of, "Okay. Okay. I'm backing off. You're all right."

Torture, he expected. Was prepared for, much as he could be. But _this?_ What the fuck did they _do_ to him?

Maybe Sonny said that last part out loud, because behind him Trent wheezes in a breath and says, "They... gave him... something. Really... bad trip."

No fucking kidding.

From outside the warehouse, there's gunfire. They need to cut Clay's chains. They need to get him out of here, somewhere he can get treatment and be safe from the assholes who did this to him… and from _himself._

How the hell are they going to manage that?

Sonny coughs, trying to clear away the knot in his throat. "Hey, kid," he says gently, moving slowly in front of Clay's staring gaze. "It's Sonny. You know me, man. You know me. You're safe now, okay? We got you."

Miraculously, Clay quiets. His hands drop away from his arms. He cocks his head to the side, heaves in a breath, and whispers in a cracked voice, "Sonny?"

Sonny's eyes burn. He nods. "Yeah, it's me. It's me, Clay. We're here for you. You're gonna feel better real soon, okay? You just gotta hang in there a little bit longer."

"I don't…" Clay's voice breaks. "It's not real. It's not. It's not real, Sonny. We have to wake up. They- they're gonna- We have to _wake up."_ Voice wobbling like a little kid's, he asks, "Why can't I wake up?"

"You're gonna real soon, okay?" With effort, Sonny keeps his tone calm and soothing. "We're here to help you with that. You just gotta let us help, okay?"

Clay shakes his head, and his vision slides past Sonny again. His face twists with obvious distress, and he croaks, "Dad. Dad, stop it. _Don't._ Let me _go."_

Before Sonny can react to that, Charlie team's medic says, "We're out of time. Sawyer's got a pneumothorax. He needs help ASAP."

Sonny looks back, watches as Jason squeezes Trent's hand, leans over him and says, "You just focus on breathing, you hear me, Bravo Four? Don't worry about anything else. We've got this handled."

Eyes wide and as close to frightened as Sonny as ever seen them, Trent manages a short nod and another shallow, wheezing breath. His lips are starting to shade faintly blue.

Trying to figure out what in God's name he's going to do, Sonny glances back toward Clay just in time to see the kid's head twist suddenly to the side. Then Spenser's entire body goes completely rigid and he falls like a pole-axed steer.

Sonny makes it to his side just before the convulsions start.

"He's seizing," the medic calls, barely looking up from the needle thoracostomy he's performing on Trent. "See if you can get him into recovery position."

Sonny manages to turn Spenser onto his side, but the short chains interfere with his ability to properly position his teammate's limbs. Charlie Four shows up with the bolt cutters, makes quick work of that problem, and helps Sonny shift the kid.

After that, there's not much to do but wait. The seizure lasts maybe two minutes altogether. Sonny is pretty sure he ages at least a decade, especially when Clay briefly stops breathing and he maybe panics a little.

"Give him a minute," the medic says, and sure enough, Clay gasps and starts breathing again. Soon after that, the tremors stop, Spenser relaxes into unconsciousness, and they get him and Trent the hell out of there, meeting up with Alpha team and their successfully captured HVT at the helo.

Sonny very much wants to beat that son of a bitch until his face is on the back of his head. He manages to stifle that urge by convincing himself that he can't leave his injured teammates. Not right now. They need him.

Mercifully, Clay doesn't wake up on the trip back to base. Trent would probably be better off unconscious, because he's obviously in agony and they can't give him anything for fear of depressing his respiration. Drenched in sweat, Bravo's medic clings to Jason's hand and stares straight upward and draws one breath after another with the same steady determination he applies to every other task, and when they land, he is still alive.

After Clay and Trent have been whisked off to receive medical treatment, Sonny wilts, sitting down hard on the nearest surface that will hold him. To his surprise, Charlie team's medic drops down next to him and just sits in companionable silence for a while. When Sonny gathers himself enough to start asking questions, the medic calmly answers them.

_Will Trent survive?_ He believes so. They should be able to stabilize him once the pneumothorax has been addressed.

_What the hell did they give Clay?_ Probably a high dose of a synthetic hallucinogen. LSD and the like don't generally cause seizures.

The conversation trails off, and the medic squeezes Sonny's shoulder and leaves him to his wait.

Charlie team's medic is right; Trent makes it through surgery and starts improving pretty much immediately. As it turns out, he actually wakes up before Clay does, and has just enough awareness to hear the latest encouraging news on Brock before falling back asleep wearing a faint smile.

Spenser doesn't regain consciousness for what feels like an eternity but is actually a bit less than a day. Sonny sits at his bedside a lot, trying not to stare at the bandages swathing his arms. Ugly as they were, the wounds were mostly not too deep, and the doctor says they should heal up okay. Might be some scarring, the thought of which makes Sonny cringe, because the last thing the kid is going to need is a lifelong reminder of this particular stroll through hell.

If his captors had thrown him a knife just for the hell of it, would Clay have opened up his arms? Cut his own throat in a desperate attempt to 'wake up'? What would they have found with Trent in that room?

He pushes the thought away. No point in borrowing trouble. Clay is alive, and so are Trent and Brock - and now that Mandy's got her hands on Moreno, Sonny is confident they'll soon be finding out what was behind all this.

Spenser is groggy as hell when he finally does wake up, and it takes him a while to be anything close to coherent. The doctor doesn't think he's at risk of having any more seizures at this point, but just the one, in combination with the drug, was enough to leave him pretty loopy.

"Sonny?" He mumbles, when he's finally aware enough to form words. "Man, I had the weirdest dream."

Sonny clears his throat, frantically flipping through his mental catalog of possible responses to that. He's saved from having to answer when Clay tries to raise his arms to rub at his eyes, sucks in a pained breath, looks down at the bandages, and says, "Oh."

"Yeah," Sonny says. "Uh. Those assholes dosed you with something. Synthetic hallucinogen. Kinda fried your brain for a little bit."

Clay goes very quiet. He lowers his arms and starts picking at the edge of the blanket with his fingertips.

Oh, so it's gonna be like that. Great.

"Listen to me," Sonny says, trying to find a balance between stern and supportive. "What they gave you, it would have fucked up _anybody._ You had a seizure, you know that? Thrashing and everything. Ain't nobody gonna think any less of you for what went down while your brain looked like a goddamn Tesla coil."

That actually draws a faint, fleeting smile. "You know what Tesla coils are?"

"Listen here, young Jedi," Sonny drawls. "I am a _fount_ of unexpected knowledge. And wisdom."

"Oh, wisdom? That's what we're calling it now?" Clay shoots back, looking up. His smile isn't quite real and there's still a hollow haunted look behind his eyes, but he's responding and listening, and they'll get him through it. It's what they do.

Now there's just one more little matter that needs to be addressed.

"When you were real out of it back there," Sonny says, "you were asking your dad to stop, and let you go."

Spenser winces. His gaze skitters away. "Ah. Yeah."

Sonny holds himself very still. "That based on something that happened?" He asks casually.

It takes Clay a minute to answer, so Sonny goes ahead and starts planning the murder of a former Navy SEAL. He's made it up to where he's gonna dump the body by the time Clay huffs a wry laugh and says, "Not exactly. My dad might be an asshole, but not like _that._ I was probably just hallucinating that he was trying to drown me. It wouldn't be the first time."

Sonny, relaxing a little, guesses, "SERE?"

"Yep." Clay sighs, looks down at his heavily bandaged arms. "Pretty sure a psychologist would have a field day with that one."

He glances back up, meets Sonny's gaze, and suddenly they're both laughing, that cleansing, almost-hysterical laugh that sometimes comes out when you've survived something you didn't have any business surviving.

Sonny hesitates, and then with a mental shrug he leans forward and pulls Clay into a very careful hug.

It's been a hell of a week. He figures they probably both need it.

* * *

Next chapter will be from Trent's point of view and will answer some of the questions about how they got captured and exactly what went down during that time.


	8. Day 6 to Day 11

Content warning: This chapter contains extremely creepy behavior; threatened/very briefly attempted sexual assault; and the same drug use, self-harm etc. warnings from the previous chapter.

* * *

When Blackburn relates the potentially concerning news that there may be a couple of vehicles headed toward Bravo's position, Jason sends Trent and Clay out to pull security on the side of the house facing the road so the team won't get caught off guard if hostiles do arrive.

There's a part of Trent that immediately protests the idea of not being there to help capture the man who is likely behind his best friend's attempted murder - but a much bigger part of Bravo Four has a crystal-clear understanding of what it means to be a team guy, and how important it is to play the role he is given. Right now it might not be the one he really wants, but it's the one he has, so he just says "Copy" and follows Bravo Six out the door.

Outside, everything is very quiet. There are a few vehicles parked in the driveway, presumably belonging to Moreno, his bodyguards, and the mistress. Beyond the driveway, the road sits empty and quiet. Nothing to report. Both sides of the house are lined with thick, neatly trimmed shrubs, which Trent gives a quick visual sweep before refocusing on the much more likely source of trouble.

He ends up wishing he'd paid a lot closer attention to those damn shrubs when, without so much as a whisper of sound, someone grabs him hard from behind and shoves the muzzle of a pistol against the side of his face.

At Trent's sharp inhale, Clay spins, reflexively starting to raise his rifle, open his mouth. The man holding Trent grinds the barrel of the gun into his cheekbone hard enough to bruise while telling Clay quietly in Spanish, "If you make a sound, I will blow his face off."

Clay freezes. Trent can see the indecision in his eyes, the calculations flashing through his brain at light speed. After just a couple seconds, Spenser slowly lowers the weapon and moves his hands out to his sides.

Trent sees the other two men at the last instant before they're on Clay. Despite the gun to his face, he still starts to open his mouth to call out a warning, but too late; Spenser doesn't even have a chance to turn before one of the men has him in a chokehold and the other one is pinning his arms to his sides so he can't go for a gun - or a radio.

Whoever these assholes are, they know what they're doing. Clay is unconscious in less than a minute, and they immediately secure his hands behind him, slap a strip of duct tape over his mouth, and take his helmet off and toss it into the dirt next to the porch.

Trent doesn't know exactly what the hell is going on here, but he _does_ know that three of his brothers are inside and he needs to warn them about it. He waits, relaxes his body into a facade of compliance, and then, when the man holding him is preoccupied talking to the others, suddenly twists away and tries to get his hand up to his radio.

He knows this might get his face shot off, but if he can save his brothers, it will be worth it.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work.

A fourth man pins his arms, and they wrench off his helmet, and then there's a blow to the side of his head that makes the world go muffled and blurry and sideways. By the time he can hear anything except the ringing in his ears, he's trussed up just like Clay is, and they're both being loaded into one of the vehicles in the driveway.

Spenser has already started to come around by then, but he only fully regains awareness a few minutes into the drive when their captors start stripping off all their gear. The assholes keep everything except the radios, which they throw out the window into a ditch.

Clay meets his teammate's gaze, and Trent can see reflected there his own crystal clear awareness of exactly how much shit they're in, along with concern that their brothers might be in even _deeper_ shit.

Before they've even made it out of town, their captors force hoods over their heads. Maybe an hour down the road, they inject them with sedatives for good measure, at which point the world spirals away and Trent doesn't wake back up again until he and Clay have been moved into a small, dingy room with a concrete floor.

The tape over their mouths has been removed, and both of them are manacled hand and foot and chained down to hooks embedded in said floor, which means they're not the first unfortunate souls to have passed through here. Trent tries valiantly to ignore the old, rusty stains on the floor; to avoid thinking too much about the fate of the last people who sat helpless inside these walls.

One of the goons apparently doesn't like the way Trent is looking around, or possibly just has some repressed rage issues. The man wanders over, punches him a couple times in the face, and then kicks him hard in the thigh for good measure. When Clay makes a furious, inarticulate noise, the asshole starts to turn his attention on him instead, only to be stopped by a sharp order from the doorway.

After shaking his head to try to clear it, Trent looks up to see José Moreno stroll into the room.

Well, _fuck._

Moreno tosses Trent a casual glance, then crosses over to Clay and drops to his heels next to him. Ignoring the absolutely vicious glare he's receiving from the captive, Moreno grabs Clay's chin in a bruising grip, tilting his face up to the light. After a tense moment, he calls back over his shoulder to his goons, "Don't hit this one. He's pretty."

Clay's eyes widen almost imperceptibly, and he goes just a bit paler. He makes an attempt to pull his face away, but Moreno digs his fingers in and uses his other hand to grab a fistful of Spenser's hair and brutally wrench his head back forward, drawing a stifled wince from the kid.

Moreno turns loose of Clay's hair, but only so he can trail his fingers down the captive's face, and then his neck, in a grotesque mockery of intimate affection.

Clay has gone very still, muscles standing out in his neck as he fights to not react. He's visibly trying to regulate his breathing, to hold himself steady, to not show fear. As Trent watches, Spenser's eyes go distant and unfocused so that he's staring straight through Moreno.

He's dissociating. Trying not to be home for whatever is going to come next.

God, please. Please. Please don't let this happen. Trent can't watch this.

He _knows_ he shouldn't react, shouldn't let them see that they're getting to him - and he manages to hold out right up until Moreno turns around, gives his guys a vicious grin and says, "There are other ways to have fun."

Trent hears himself snarl, "Don't you touch-"

The blow that lands this time feels like a brick to the face. Trent's head snaps back; his vision erupts in splotches of color. He slumps to the side as the blows and kicks start raining down on his chest and side until he both feels and _hears_ bones breaking.

The entire time, Clay doesn't make a sound.

Trent doesn't understand why - thinks maybe it's just because his own hearing has been swallowed up in the roar of pain - until after Moreno finally barks at his guys to stop. When Trent's vision comes back online and he manages to open his one eye that isn't already swelling shut, he sees that the cartel lieutenant has his arm curled all the way around Clay, hand clamped firmly over the kid's mouth. His other hand is carding almost gently through Spenser's wavy blond hair.

Clay's chest is heaving; apparently he has finally started to lose control of his breathing. Hunching over his newly broken ribs, Trent struggles to breathe for an entirely different reason, and he wonders which of them was actually hurt worse by that beating: the one who took it, or the one who had to watch helplessly.

They are all very familiar with pain. How to endure it, fight through it, even pretend it doesn't exist when they have to. Witnessing a brother's suffering while being utterly unable to do anything about it? In some ways, that might actually be harder.

Fear claws at Trent, deeper than a busted face and broken ribs, because he's still afraid he might end up having to watch something a hell of a lot worse than a beating.

Moreno needs to get his creepy-ass hands the fuck off Bravo's kid, or Trent might just gnaw his own limbs off to escape and then use his stumps to castrate the son of a bitch.

The cartel lieutenant calls an order, telling one of his lackeys to bring him something. Trent isn't familiar with the Spanish word he uses.

After a couple minutes, the man returns carrying a syringe. When Moreno brings the needle toward Clay's neck, Spenser starts trying to struggle, to pull away. One of the men strolls over to Trent and casually aims a gun at his head. That's all it takes. Clay immediately goes still, barely flinching when the needle punctures his skin.

Are they sedating him? Giving him some kind of paralytic so he can't try to fight back?

Trent is glad the tape isn't over his mouth anymore, because he feels like he might throw up - and not just from the grating pain sawing through his chest or the brutal throb behind his eye.

To his surprise, and at least temporary relief, Moreno and his guys leave the room and shut the door behind them, leaving their captives in semidarkness.

Clay coughs. His voice is hoarse but surprisingly steady when he says, "Trent? Talk to me, man. You okay?"

The honest answer to that is 'probably not.' Every time he draws a breath, there are things shifting that very much shouldn't be. He doesn't think his head injury is as serious as the broken ribs and potential internal damage, but that's not really saying much.

"I'm good," he lies, trying not to sound as breathless as he feels. "Little banged up. You?"

"I'm... I feel kinda floaty," Clay says, which really doesn't offer much of a clue as to what they might have given him.

Trent's mind keeps circling back to that moment when they got the drop on him, and how Clay then gave up his only real chance at fighting back. With the kind of injuries Trent suspects he has, it might be a good idea to go ahead and say anything that needs to be said while he still has a chance, so he opens his mouth to apologize for getting his teammate into this mess.

Before he can say a word, Clay suddenly starts rambling about the colors on the walls. The completely featureless gray walls that are only barely visible in the dim room.

Things go very rapidly downhill from there.

Spenser's behavior becomes manic, paranoid and delusional. He babbles, conversing with people who aren't there: Brian, Adam, his dad. He alternates between asking Trent to help him, and not even seeming able to recognize Trent at all.

Eventually some part of Clay's brain, that Navy SEAL brain that never, ever stops trying to work the problem, apparently begins to understand that this isn't right; that whatever he's perceiving most definitely cannot be reality.

At first when Clay starts repeating to himself a mantra of "It isn't real it isn't real it isn't," Trent actually feels hopeful. On some level, he must believe his teammate is capable of just... deciding to snap himself out of what is obviously a very bad trip induced by an extremely nasty drug.

Turns out hope is not the correct response, because Spenser's brain takes accurate information (_I'm seeing and feeling things that aren't real_) and uses it to come to a very incorrect conclusion:

_I'm trapped inside a nightmare, and I have to find a way to wake up._

It starts out innocuously enough: he tries pinching himself. When that doesn't work, Spenser escalates to digging his fingernails in, then using them to make shallow welts. Trent's attempts to calm Clay down seem ineffective at best and actively harmful at worst, so he eventually gives up. Talking is getting hard anyway... along with breathing.

While Trent's gradual decline continues, making him suspect he may be developing a pneumothorax, things with Spenser don't get _really_ bad until the next time Moreno returns, this time with just one lackey in tow.

They laugh at Clay's confusion and fear, at the way he tries to convince himself they aren't really there. That strategy lasts right up until the henchman holds Spenser still while Moreno leans down to fumble at the button on his captive's pants.

Clay must not be too far gone to understand exactly what that means, because he goes absolutely berserk.

Despite being shackled, chained and drugged out of his damn mind, he somehow manages to throw them both off him, scramble back up against the wall, and start clawing furrows in his own skin, like he's decided enough is enough and he needs to wake up _right fucking now_ before this dream goes somewhere it can't come back from.

Moreno seems caught between amusement and anger. He eventually throws his hands up and decides he's going to have to wait until his prey is at least coherent enough to be threatened into compliance. While they leave and lock the door behind them, Moreno berates his subordinate for preparing too high a dose.

Trent tries to take a deep breath of relief, but he isn't really up for it at the moment. He settles instead for a shallow gasp and a tentative, "Clay? You all right?"

Spenser responds by just saying 'no' a whole bunch of times, and then he continues trying to claw himself awake.

From there, things don't really get much better. For either of them. Trent gets the privilege of slowly drowning while also witnessing one of his closest friends shred himself.

By the time Bravo finally blows the lock and makes entry, Trent is fading, the world flickering at the edges like damaged film. He's got just enough awareness left to try to warn them about Clay.

It doesn't work, and the worry twists a knot in Trent's guts, because this is... he's supposed to be the one doing this. Taking care of them all. Making things better, no matter what it takes.

As though he can hear Trent's thoughts, Jason leans over him and tells him very calmly that they've got it handled, and he just needs to focus on breathing.

Trent trusts Jason Hayes to the end of the earth. So he listens.

It hurts. It hurts _so much._ He understands that they can't give him anything to help, so he hangs on and he rides it out.

Jason holds his hand. Ray pats his face and tells him softly, "I know, brother. I know. We're gonna get you some relief. You're gonna be just fine."

They land. There's a medical team. The world swirls away into darkness.

After that, awareness trickles in a little at a time. He surfaces long enough to hear that Brock is better, that he might be waking up soon. Goes under before he has a chance to ask about Spenser.

There are more flashes, bits and pieces, and eventually he wakes up coherent enough to actually carry on a conversation. His chest still hurts and he's too weak to raise a cup to his mouth, but the air hunger is gone, and Jason assures him he should make a full recovery with time.

There's more good news about Brock. Hayes follows it up with a positive report on Spenser, who is awake and recovering and seems none the worse for wear.

Oh, Trent is sure he _seems_ that way. Doesn't mean he actually is. Either of them, really.

He hesitates, struggling to find the balance between protecting his friend and making his boss aware of something that could potentially impact the team's ability to operate.

With an internal sigh, Trent clears his throat and says in the strange, hoarse voice that is apparently his for the time being, "You know how we all call Spenser 'pretty boy' sometimes? Tease him about his looks?"

Jason blinks at him, seemingly caught off guard. "Yeah?"

"Yeah, uh, we shouldn't do that anymore. At least not for a while."

Jason Hayes is many things. Slow to catch on isn't generally one of them. He looks at Trent, and then his eyes widen and he sucks in a breath.

Trent continues evenly, "What you're thinking happened, it didn't. But it almost did. And it would have if we'd been there for much longer."

Saying it out loud makes it real, and suddenly the whole damn ordeal comes crashing down on him. The helplessness of being chained down and beaten nearly to death, followed by hours of mentally cataloging each stage of his own respiratory decline. The horror of what he almost had to watch - and, hell, what he _did_ have to watch was bad enough.

Suddenly Hayes is squeezing his shoulder and telling him, "Hey, breathe. It's okay. You're okay. Slow and steady. Like this."

Eventually Trent manages to match his breathing to Jason's, and the pain in his chest recedes back down to a manageable level. Jason gives him an approving shoulder pat, and then he says, "You are going to be fine. Clay, he's a tough kid, and he'll work through this, and we'll help him. Brock is gonna wake up any day now and probably start demanding to see his dog."

Trent forces himself to nod.

"We have been through hell," Jason says bluntly. "Some of us more than others. But we still have each other, and we _will_ get through it. I swear."

Trent meets his team leader's gaze, and he draws as deep a breath as he can, and he chooses to believe.


	9. Day ?

As a Tier One operator, Brock Reynolds has had more than his fair share of opportunities to experience utter, bone-deep exhaustion. Through necessity, he has become pretty impressively good at just putting his head down and pushing through it.

For some reason, the aftermath of the failed mission in Colombia is proving especially challenging on that front. Brock is so exhausted that his vision keeps trying to blur and he can barely feel his hands. Part of that might be low blood sugar from barely eating for about the past three days, but he's too tired to bother with food right now. All he wants is to sleep for about a week.

While Clay goes to shower and the rest of the team heads off to find a meal, Brock chooses to return to their quarters. As he slogs along, feeling like he's trying to walk through deep mud, he repeats to himself that all he has to do is feed Cerb, and then he can get some rest.

They pass a few people in the hall. Brock doesn't pay them any mind… right up until Cerb stiffens, starts barking lowly, and strains toward a rolling suitcase being pulled past him.

The dog doesn't sit, which means no explosives, but _something_ has him on high alert.

The man pulling the suitcase slows and glances back over his shoulder. Brock's fuzzy, addled brain vaguely realizes he's met him before; recognizes him as a SEAL, but not a Tier One operator.

The man's smile looks overly bright, and there's an odd sheen of sweat shining on his forehead. "Your dog must be hungry," he says. "Probably just smelling the bandeja paisa I had earlier."

Brock forces a half-hearted laugh, pulling his still-tense Malinois away from the luggage. He can feel the puzzlement creasing his own face when Cerb refuses to come easily, growling so low in his throat that Brock can only barely hear it.

The dog _is_ hungry, and probably weary like the rest of Bravo, but in no universe could that possibly account for this sort of behavior.

With an internal shrug, Brock continues on his way, more than once stumbling over nothing because he's having trouble lifting his feet high enough to walk. Under normal circumstances, he might feel a little embarrassed by the clumsiness, but he's currently too tired to give a damn.

He reaches Bravo's quarters, goes inside his cage, fills Cerb's food and water bowls. The siren song of his hammock is almost the only thing Brock can hear.

Almost, but not quite.

Something is very off here. The SEAL's odd behavior, combined with Cerberus's even _odder_ behavior... He doesn't like it. At the very least, he feels like he should talk to Jason about it. Get advice on where, if anywhere, he should go from here.

With a bone-deep sigh, Brock leaves his cage, swinging the door shut behind him to keep Cerb contained, and heads back toward the mess hall.

He barely makes it out the doorway into the hall before something punches him in the side.

The blow lands hard, forcing the breath from his lungs, and the pain that follows it burns through him like a shard of ice. There are hands, shoving him back into the room. His lungs hurt. He tries and fails to draw a breath, to orient himself, to make everything stop spinning.

Through the blur of pain and confusion, Brock catches a flicker of motion, and then the world explodes into a kaleidoscope of sharp, colored fragments.

His face is against the floor. The floor is cold and smeared with red. His head hurts. It hurts. It…

_Cerb, help me!_

_Jason._

_Somebody._

_Please._

He can't make the words come out. Someone has taken away his voice.

Brock gets his eyes open to see two pairs of boots, and then there's barking and the boots are gone. He blinks and there's soft whining, a press of fur and warmth against his side. The pain is going. Everything is going.

He doesn't want to die.

Darkness bleeds across his vision. On elbows and thighs, he drags himself. There are drumbeats in his head, the crash of cymbals with every heartbeat, and he can't feel Cerb or the floor or anything, but he keeps crawling until...

Until...

Everything is gone.

And then it's not.

Sound comes back first, distant beeping he can't make sense of. Then there's a smell, harsh and unfamiliar, not Cerb or home or any one of his brothers.

He isn't safe. He isn't safe. _He isn't._

Brock feels hands, steady and gentle, one resting on his forehead and the other on his arm. Then he hears a woman say, "You're okay. We've got you. We're right here."

He knows that voice. _Naima._

Another voice joins the party. "Come on, Broccoli, I know you're in there. Look at me."

He somehow manages to peel his eyes far enough open to see his little sister leaning over him, her tired face framed by a wild halo of dark curls.

"Jess?" He rasps.

"Hey, stupid," she says, and bursts into tears.

Things blink out again. He wakes up and it's his big sister Eleanor with him; then Naima; then Jessica again.

Gradually, he starts staying conscious for longer stretches. His sisters shower him with love and affectionate insults, but eventually have to travel home to their families. He misses his dog, and his team's absence sits like an elephant on his chest. Naima tells him, again and again, that they are safe and will be coming home soon, but it doesn't truly settle in his soul until the morning he opens his eyes and there they are.

They look as tired as Brock vaguely remembers being before... whatever it was that happened.

Brock's eyes find Trent first. His best friend is sitting down, and he's pale and hunched forward in a way that says he's hurting but doesn't want to admit it.

The others look healthier, but only barely. Jason has soot-dark circles under his eyes. Sonny is leaning against the wall like he needs it to hold him up. Clay is wearing long sleeves and a thousand-yard stare, and has his arms loosely, carefully folded over his chest. Ray's knee is bouncing - and Ray isn't typically a fidgeter.

Jason is the first to notice that Brock's eyes are open. The others quickly follow suit, and their varying flavors of pain and exhaustion immediately melt into open, delighted relief.

"Y'all look terrible," Brock mumbles, reaching up to rub at sleep-crusted eyes.

There's a ripple of laughter, a general shift forward as they reach out to pat his shoulder, squeeze his hand, touch his face. They're being careful with him in a way that would have told him exactly how bad this was, even if he hadn't already figured that out on his own.

Trent has a pillow pressed against his chest for support, and he winces when he laughs; winces more when he leans forward. "Hey," he half-whispers, his eyes sweeping across Brock before returning to his face.

"Hey," Brock returns. After briefly closing his eyes to ride out a spike of pain, he asks, "You okay?"

Trent smiles. "Yeah, I'll be fine. Broken ribs. They suck." He tries to sound casual, but his cracked, hoarse voice is a dead giveaway that whatever's going on with him is probably a lot more complicated than just broken ribs.

Brock is so excited about finally getting to see his team again that he falls back asleep before he gets a chance to ask them exactly what the hell happened to him - and them, for that matter.

Now that they're back home, at least one of them is always around, ready to offer encouragement while Brock gets tortured by physical therapists - or ready to annoy him into continuing if he looks like he's thinking about giving up. More than once, his team sneaks in Cerb to see him, and Brock is pretty sure the hospital staff is deliberately turning a blind eye, because it's pretty hard to actually conceal a Malinois that's _that_ overwhelmed with excitement and joy.

Cerberus suffered a sprain and some ugly contusions from getting kicked, but he's already out of the brace and should make a full recovery with time. Naima has been caring for him, working through his daily rehab routine, showering the dog with affection and purpose. Brock adores her even more than he did before, if that's possible.

As for Brock himself, the general consensus among his medical team is that he is surprisingly free of brain damage. The main problem is just that his muscles went unused while he was in a medically induced coma, and now it will take some time to get them re-accustomed to doing things like lifting spoons and walking.

Bit by bit, Brock manages to extract pieces of information from his team members. From Jason, he gets confirmation of what he'd already suspected: that the SEAL he'd met in the hallway was trying to smuggle drugs back stateside. The incident with Cerb convinced the man he was busted, at which point he panicked and tried to clean up the mess by getting rid of Brock.

Scary thing was, it almost worked. The SEAL managed to leave base before the lockdown was initiated. Made it all the way back to the States, initially escaped suspicion, and wasn't brought in until after Mandy managed to extract his name from a member of the cartel he'd been working with.

Trent is the one who fills in a detail that's much harder to digest: the other pair of boots Brock saw before losing consciousness belonged to Darren Kessel, one of the temporary support staff members Bravo had been assigned upon arrival in Colombia.

That takes a while for Brock to wrap his head around, because while he hadn't known Kessel well, he'd worked with him for _weeks_ beforehand, had trusted him to help keep Bravo alive, and the man had repaid that trust by trying to brutally murder him over what? Money?

Once Brock is able to think past his own hurt and sense of betrayal, he realizes that Trent has gone shifty and seems to be having trouble meeting his eyes, which is a clear indication that there's more to this whole Kessel angle. When Brock tries to pull at that thread, though, Trent immediately deflects, making it clear he isn't ready to talk about it.

The next visitor is Clay. The more Brock interacts with him, the more certain he feels that whatever he isn't being told is much bigger than he initially realized.

They've been together on Bravo for long enough for Brock to get a very good sense of exactly who his youngest teammate is. Clay Spenser is cocky and confident, and incredibly resilient, and unfazed by chaotic environments. Brock has never seen him act hypervigilant, not even after the surprise attack in Manila that nearly killed him.

Now? Well, this Clay is superficially the same. He smiles a lot. He teases Brock at all the right times, goads him into working harder, offers support when it's needed.

This Clay also wears long sleeves every day and never rolls them up even a little, and exhibits nervous tics Brock has never seen before, and flinches every time there's a loud noise, and tries to keep track of the exact location of every single person in every room he's in.

Something happened to him. Brock is guessing it was pretty bad. He feels like he's looking at a fragile mask that's covering up a world of hurt, and he's afraid tapping at it will make the whole thing shatter, so he lets the delicate pretense of normalcy remain in place. At least for now.

In the end, it's Sonny who tells him.

Kessel didn't just betray Brock. He betrayed the rest of Bravo, too.

Once Mandy ID'd José Moreno as their target, Kessel passed along the mission information to Moreno himself. Harboring delusions of grandeur, the power-hungry asshole jumped at the opportunity to grab himself a couple of Tier One SEALs, with the intention of selling them and using the money to expand his organization's operations.

Sonny hesitates then, looking away, rubbing his hands across his jeans. He doesn't pick back up until Brock gently prompts, "Trent and Clay?"

Sonny nods, clears his throat. "Uh, yeah. It was pretty bad. They damn near beat Trent to death. Punctured his lung."

That explains a lot - and it makes Brock feel cold, thinking about how close he came to losing his best friend. He imagines Trent probably feels similarly about what happened to him.

"Clay?" He asks, half afraid of the answer.

Sonny sighs deeply and takes his time before saying, "They dosed him with something. Hallucinogen. It hit him pretty hard; he ended up having a full-blown seizure. And that ain't even the worst part." He straightens his shoulders, meets Brock's gaze, and says, "Moreno tried to... he was gonna..."

Whatever it was, he can't seem to bring himself to say it. Brock starts to get a sick feeling in the pit of his gut.

"He thought Clay was _pretty,"_ Sonny finally says, spitting the word out like it's poison.

Brock can _feel_ the color draining from his face. The reaction sets off a spike of pain in his head, one of those sudden, unpredictable headaches he's been having. He squeezes his eyes shut, opens them again to find Sonny leaning over him, patting his shoulder, looking haunted and guilt-ridden.

"You okay?" The Texan asks in a whisper, since they've all learned that loud noises make the headaches worse. "Need a nurse?"

Brock breathes, slow and deep, and focuses on controlling his heart rate. It helps. A little.

"Nah," he says. "I'm good. Just... tell me. Please."

Sonny nods slowly. "Uh, Mandy found them, and we got there before that asshole had a chance to..." He trails off. "Anyway, we got them out, grabbed Moreno, gave him to Mandy, and you pretty much know the rest." After a pause, he adds with a note of vicious satisfaction, "'Cept maybe for the part where Mandy leaked a story that Moreno had been intending to overthrow the drug lord he worked for. And then she turned him loose and sent him home."

Brock whistles quietly.

"Yeah," Sonny says. "He lasted a couple hours, maybe. The others, they're gonna rot in prison."

Brock absorbs that. It doesn't change much about what his life currently looks like - he's still stuck in bed, suffering excruciating headaches and fighting to get his own damn muscles to cooperate with him - but there is a sense of satisfaction in knowing justice has been done.

After he gets out of the hospital, he and Cerb move in with Clay. Brock is pretty nervous about it at first, uncertain about how the kid is going to handle having someone in his space all the time, but it actually goes pretty well. Spenser, having had to go through the grueling, excruciating physical therapy process not so long ago, throws himself into helping his teammate endure it.

Brock sees the scars Clay has been hiding, and figures out without being told where they came from, and watches as they gradually begin to fade from the forefront of Clay's awareness and into the background noise of his life.

In fits and starts, Brock recovers, builds strength, proves that his coordination and decision-making skills are intact. Trent regains lung capacity. Clay's tension and jumpiness don't quite disappear, but they do gradually ease back to manageable levels.

And Cerberus? Well, Cerberus is more than happy to show off just exactly how well his leg has recovered by playing fetch with Jameelah and RJ until both of the kids are exhausted.

The entire team clusters in Ray's back yard, quietly sharing space while enjoying the cacophony of barking and belly laughter. They all watch as Jameelah winds up and unleashes a particularly impressive throw.

"That's a hell of an arm," Spenser tells Ray. "Now we just got to teach her how to throw a curve ball."

Jason shakes his head. "No, she should play hockey."

Naima scoffs. "Please. My daughter is going to play soccer."

Ray throws his hands up. "How about we let _her_ decide? Hey, Meelah! What sport do you want to play?"

She thinks this through, then declares gravely, "Boxing."

Ray leans forward, puts his hands on her shoulders, and looks into her eyes. "Baby girl. Do you know what chronic traumatic encephalopathy is?"

She shakes her head.

"No? Okay. Let's keep it that way. No boxing."

"Yeah," Brock deadpans, "there's already more than enough brain damage in this group."

There's a beat, and then everyone laughs, and then they all go to teasing Ray about how quickly he abandoned his 'let her decide' position as soon as his daughter picked a sport he didn't want her to.

Brock sits back, smiles quietly, and just watches the show.

* * *

Well, this one definitely happened! Thanks to everyone who stuck with it.


End file.
